Anxious curiosity shone in every expression—even Vaughn’s—as she passed. She could have played the message there, in front of all of them. Maybe she should have. Nothing in it would be secret for long anyway. But she didn’t want anyone watching her when she saw it. Except Saba, and she wanted him there badly.
In her office, she closed the door, then locked it. The little fern in the corner held its fronds high in the null g. A few things she hadn’t stowed—a drinking bulb, a printout on plastic flimsy, a clump of potting soil—floated in the air. She’d spent too long in spin gravity. She’d come to assume it would always be there, a few years’ habit enough to erase generations of experience and Belter identity.
She was aware that her brain wasn’t functioning normally. She felt more like she was piloting her body than living it. She knew it was shock and trauma, but knowing it changed nothing.
She strapped herself into her chair, took control of her personal interface, and opened her pending messages. Three were listed as unread. One was from the commander of one of the refugee ships, one from a captain of one of the EMC ships, and the last was listed as Admiral Anton Trejo of the Laconian Imperial Navy. Somewhere in a different universe, the Klaxons stopped their wailing. She wished now that she’d brought Vaughn at least. And maybe a whiskey.
She started the message playback.
Trejo sat at his station, his uniform immaculate and pressed. His thinning black hair was in place and his eyes a bright green. He didn’t even have the good taste to look disheveled. His smile radiated warmth and sympathy. She half expected him to start talking to her about his relationship to God or a business opportunity she should keep quiet about for fear of starting a rush.
“President Drummer, I hope.” He drawled like someone from the Mariner Valley. “If not, then please accept my condolences for her passing. I am Admiral Trejo of the Laconian battleship Heart of the Tempest, but you knew that. I’m reaching out to you now because I don’t want to be misunderstood. Despite all the hostilities the Transport Union and the Earth-Mars Coalition have greeted me with, we’re not enemies. Not you and me. Not the union and the empire. Not Sol system and Laconia. The high consul knew that there would be resistance to this change. We all did, and we respect that you had to do the things you’ve done.
“When people like you and I enter into a new phase of history, there’s … I don’t know what you’d call it. Birth pangs? There’s a time when you have to expect violence, even though you don’t celebrate it. When the high consul first explained to me the parameters of this mission, I wasn’t pleased. One ship, no backup, against an entire system? But he brought me around. And this moment, this message, is part of why I felt that his approach was the only moral way forward.
“I have tried to reach Secretary-General Li, but he isn’t returning my messages yet. You’re here, and you are at least equal in dignity to anyone on the inner planets. You can end this. I understand that you had to fight. You had to try to destroy me. I don’t blame you for this. But I am permitted at this point to accept your surrender. Do this, and the inner planets will follow you. You will be treated fairly by the new administration. I promise you that.
“If you are not yet willing to accept defeat, then I would ask you, out of what I hope is mutual respect, to tell me one thing. What is the number of dead that you need in order to show history that your choice to end this was wisdom? That carrying on the fight would not have been bravery but foolishness. A hundred more. A thousand more. A million. A billion. Only say how many more corpses will make this possible for you, and I will provide them.” He spread his hands. “Tell me the number. I await your reply.”
The message ended. Drummer floated against her restraints and thought about whether to play the message again, if only to give herself a few more moments before she went back to the command center. She could feel her pulse in her throat and in her wrists—a throbbing exhaustion. Released herself, pushed toward the door, down the short hall.
They were all silent when she arrived. She looked at her crash couch, there before the display. The moth-eaten wave of green. The tiny, indomitable dot of orange.
“Vaughn, I’ll need you to send a message to the Heart of the Tempest.”
“Ma’am,” Vaughn said, nodding crisply. I could order him to his death. I could tell them all to fight to the last breath.
“The message is this: ‘The number is zero.’ Send that, and then order all union ships to stand down.”
She looked for some reaction in Vaughn’s face. Rage or relief or disappointment. It was like expecting emotions from a stone.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Is there anything else?”
“No,” she said.
There is nothing else. No way forward. Her fight was over. If there was any hope to stand against this empire, it was someplace else now.
If.
Chapter Forty-Six: Singh
He didn’t see the catastrophe coming. Even when the scope of it became clear, he struggled to understand it. Blindsided.
The talk in the station—the talk everywhere—was about Sol system and the surrender. Singh watched it play out in newsfeeds and discussion forums, taking the role of official censor more for the joy of being present in the unfolding of history than from any immediate need. The combined fleet of the Transport Union and the EMC beaten and standing down. The newsfeeds from the local sources in Sol system were anguish and despair, with only a few outlets calling unconvincingly for the battle to continue.
For their own side, Carrie Fisk and the Laconian Congress of Worlds proved to be an apt tool for the job, praising the Transport Union’s capitulation as a moment of liberation for the former colony worlds. The rules and restrictions on trade are no longer being dictated by the generational politics of Sol. By being outside the system of favoritism, nepotism, political horse-trading and compromise, Laconia is positioned to bring exactly the reforms that humanity needs. He noticed that she shied away from mentioning High Consul Duarte’s name. It was always just Laconia.
Which was fine. The two were essentially the same.
But it was the conversation beyond her and other specifically recruited allies that made him feel best. Governor Kwan from Bara Gaon Complex issued a statement of support for the new administration so quickly that Singh was almost certain it had been recorded in advance. Auberon’s local parliament also sent a public message to put themselves in place as early supporters of the new regime. New Spain, New Roma, Nyingchi Xin, Félicité, Paradíso, Pátria, Asylum, Chrysanthemum, Ríocht. Major colonies, some with populations already in the millions, had seen the battle at Leuctra Point and drawn the only sane conclusion. The power center of the human race had shifted, and the wise were shifting with it.
The imminent arrival of the Typhoon also helped. He had known Rear Admiral Song since he’d entered the service. Not that they’d ever been close, but she was a face and a name that carried a weight of familiarity. He’d only traded a handful of messages with her, mostly to arrange the piece for the newsfeeds, but speaking to her had reminded him powerfully of home. The routines he’d had on Laconia, the taste of the tea, the little part where he would sit with Elsa when she was newborn and Natalia was sleeping. Watching sunbirds dive into the pond. Sending James Holden back had begun it, and the coming of the Typhoon would complete it. Traffic to and from Laconia. Proof that the great roads of space were open.
The longing it called forth in him was vast and complex. The open sky that he wouldn’t see as long as he remained governor of Medina. The touch of his wife’s skin against his, which he could look forward to. His daughter’s laughter and the soft sounds she made at the edge of sleep.
There was a way in which every day since he’d stepped off the Storm had been a pause, like holding his breath. And soon, soon, his real work could begin. With the Typhoon in place and Sol system conquered, the empire would be unassailable, and humanity’s future assured. He’d ignored his own anxiety and impatience, and now that he c
ould almost relax, he felt them straining for that release.